Some movies are ‘whodunnits’ – thrillers that tease you to nail their confounding puzzles. Some are ‘whydunnits’ – the ones that make so little sense that you watch them to answer, “Why was this even made?” A whodunnit, irrespective of its merits, at least offers answers. A whydunnit is above such trivialities.
Student of the Year 2, starring Tara Sutaria, Ananya Panday, Tiger Shroff and his biceps, is a first-rate whydunnit – a film so thoroughly inane that it keeps making you chuckle: This is ‘Whydunnit Lite (the LOL version)’.
Student of the Year 2 is a film of its time. Over the last decade when young India’s most prized achievement, the engineering degree, has become grossly devalued and unemployment has reached depressing lows, here’s a film that puts the high in high school.
Also read: Is Acting Hazardous? On The Risks of Immersing Oneself in a Role
The school shown here, Saint Teresa, like the ‘Gurukul’ of Mohabbatein (2000), brims with realism: the principal (Samir Soni) is a laughing stock; the students, in micro-minis and flamboyant jackets, look prepared for a ramp walk any minute; and there’s an inordinate emphasis on everything except studies: dancing, running, singing, jumping, flirting, punching. This, you soon come to realise, is a finishing school for Bollywood hopefuls. After all, who doesn’t want to be a hero? Mysterious creatures with Benjamin Button-like qualities. As I saw 29-year-old Shroff play a 16-year-old, I thought about my grey whiskers and died many silent deaths.
Sorry for digressing. I forgot that the film had a story, too. Student of the Year 2 revolves around four main characters. Boy A (Shroff) loves Girl A (Sutaria) (they’re called Rohan and Mia but, in the spirit of the movie, let’s not get bogged down by details). Boy A has loved Girl A for as long as he can remember. The film helpfully describes it, via a song, as “school waala love”.
But then Girl A grows up (and by grow up, I mean reaches high school) and thinks, “Oh noes, I gotta get myself a rich boi.” The rich boi is Boy B (Aditya Seal), a student at Saint Teresa, who has won ‘Student of the Year’ two consecutive years. Boy B has a sister, Girl B (Panday), a garden-variety brat who hates her brother (and father). Girl A leaves Boy A for Boy B. Boy A gets all sad, so does the movie, but then he thinks “whatevz” and starts hanging with Girl B.
The entire thing is held together by an inter-school sports competition which, for some reason, is considered prestigious. Boy A, who briefly transfers to Saint Teresa, is originally from the uncool, (relatively) impoverished school called Pishorilal Chamandas. This is Bollywood’s version of class divide – to be fair, though, Boy A does try to look middle-class; he owns a bicycle, Girl B a sports car. This, by Dharma Productions’ standards, is an improvement. If it were left to Karan Johar, the film’s producer, he’d one day make a movie on Ambani and Adani, seeing it as a Krishna-Sudama story. (Sorry I digressed again.)
Directed by Puneet (Who?) Malhotra, Student of the Year 2 has some excellent performances. First of all, there’s Shroff who think acting is either divine intervention or natural progression – something that happens on its own, like, for instance, getting wet in the rain. The female leads, Sutaria and Panday, embody a stunning combination: infinite confidence and zero screen presence, presumably thinking, “At least we’re better than the hero” (#SpoilerAlert: They’re not). And finally, there’s Seal who beats all of them in the worst actor contest by a fair margin, which anyway seems to be the main competition here.
Also read: Creative License vs Historical Records: Spotting the Saffron in ‘Kesari’
But that’s not all: at one point, Will Smith makes an appearance. He dances on stage for a few seconds, with the film’s other actors, to the remixed version of ‘Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani’. If you think that makes no sense at all, then you’re obviously mistaken. This is a film that constantly challenges our perceptions of reality (“What is a school? What is a fancy-dress competition? Who is a student? Why are multi-sport events not part of the school curriculum?”) and the Smith cameo seems to be an extension of that.
As the end credits roll, Alia Bhatt (who starred in the series’ first movie) appears on screen and dances with Shroff to a number, subtly titled ‘The Hook Up Song’. I felt like screaming, “Give my money back!” – no, not to the movie, but to all my previous schools, which robbed me of, erm, a rich experience.
Whydunnit: not just a sub-genre of Bollywood movies, but your feelings about your life as you exit the theatre.